6. Dimitri
6
DIMITRI
I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who is more entrancing and infuriating, all at once, in equal measure.
This is a bad idea. I knew it when I suggested it last night, and I know it now, as I sink back down into my chair and watch Evelyn flag down a taxi. I should have offered to call her an Uber, but something tells me she wouldn’t have let me. She’s independent to a fault, and I know it’s going to cause me trouble.
A lot of things about her are going to cause me trouble. Not the least of which is how desirable I find her, combined with her insistence that there will be no sexual aspect to our marriage, at all.
I hadn’t expected that. My own arrogance, I suppose, assuming that no woman would have the chance to fuck me and turn it down. It was a blow to my ego, that’s for certain—I can still feel the sting. But worse than that is the fact that I have no earthly idea how I’m going to marry Evelyn Ashburn, and keep my hands off of her.
It’s better than marrying Nicci, isn’t it ?
I groan at the thought, rubbing a hand over my mouth. I’ve been purposefully dodging Nicci’s calls and texts since I left the party last night, and I know she’s going to be furious. She’s going to be even more furious when she finds out I’m calling off the engagement, but I can’t say anything to her until I break the news to my father, first. He’s going to be furious with me, too.
But Evelyn will be mine. For a little while, at least. I’m not enough of a fool to think that she’ll change her mind while married to me, that she’ll give in to desire or that she’ll fall hopelessly in love—and love isn’t what I’m looking for, anyway. What I wanted was to get to have her for a little while, all while escaping my engagement and giving her back her shop, and then let her go when the time was right and we’d both tired of each other.
Now, her insistence on celibacy—between us, at least—has thrown a wrench into that plan. But the bones of it are still there. I won’t have to marry Nicci, and she’ll get her shop restored. Both my desire to escape my engagement and my guilt over my part in the destruction of Evelyn’s boutique are strong enough to push me forward, no matter what restrictions Evelyn has placed on our relationship.
I finish my drink and pay the tab, taking a small comfort in the fact that I won’t need to deal with either my father or Nicci until the morning. I text my driver, heading back to my penthouse, far from my family’s mansion and the responsibilities that I know I’ll need to face the next day.
But they don’t weigh on me any less in the morning. I wake from restless dreams about Evelyn, certain I can smell her orange spiced perfume, and stumble to the shower, taking longer than necessary under the hot water so that I can relieve the aching pressure in my cock.
I feel like I’ve been hard since the moment she walked into the bar last night. I jerked off thinking about her when I got back to my penthouse, and now I find myself bracing against the shower tiles, groaning as I imagine her full, soft lips wrapped around me instead of my stroking fingers. The climax, when it hits, is a release—but not the one I want.
Frustration simmers in my veins as I call my driver and head down, thinking over all the ways that I can break this to my father when I arrive home. In the end, as I walk through the marble-tiled entryway and straight to his office in the east wing, I decide that the most direct approach is the best.
My father, Pietr Yashkov, is sitting behind his desk when I walk in. I rap my knuckles once on the outside of the door and then stride inside, ignoring the irritated look he gives me at being interrupted. He looks exhausted, his skin sallow, with deep purple bags under his eyes, and I can’t resist commenting on it.
“You’d be less tired if you let me do more, otets .” I sink down into one of the leather chairs opposite his desk, and his look of irritation deepens.
“You’ll have all the time in the world to do my job once I’m gone. What are you interrupting me for, Dimitri?”
I glance at the papers strewn across his desk—contracts, offers to purchase property, all of the usual. The legitimate ways that we move and hide the money that comes in from our less-than-legal, but far more profitable endeavors.
“I’m not marrying Nicci.”
There it is. Blunt and to the point, enough so that I see it momentarily shocks my father into silence. His brow furrows, his gaze turning thunderous, but I don’t flinch.
“We discussed this months ago, Dimitri. What’s best for the family?—”
“What’s best for the family is that I choose my wife,” I tell him flatly. “If it were some major alliance with one of the other families, I might be more inclined to be swayed. But this is about money. We have money, otets , more than I or my children or my grandchildren will be able to spend, and there will be more. There is always more. I’m not chaining myself to a woman I hate for the rest of my life over money.”
“This is will be an insult to the Armand family?—”
“Nothing was official. Nothing was ever signed. There was an understanding, but it was one I didn’t agree to. Hell, I haven’t even given her a ring.” I run a hand through my hair. “There is no insult. I’m not breaking any promise.”
“You’re disobeying me. Your father. I could disinherit you for this?—”
“And give the inheritance to who?” I narrow my eyes at him. “Alek is gone. Who will you give it to? Some cousin who hasn’t spent their life learning at your knee? The Yashkov name in New York is mine, otets . A woman won’t change that.”
“And there’s someone else?” My father may be paranoid, but he’s still perceptive.
I suck in a deep breath. “There is.”
“You’ve made no promise to this new woman, either?—”
“I have,” I tell him easily. “I gave her mama ’s ring. She’s my fiance, and there would be a real insult, if I took it back now.”
It’s a lie, of course. I haven’t given Evelyn my mother’s ring—hadn’t even thought that I intended to, until the words came out of my mouth. But they feel right as I say them, and I know that should unsettle me more than it does.
“What family is she from? Who would you insult?”
That, of course, is a question I can’t answer. Evelyn isn’t from any notable family, and her name wouldn’t ring a bell for my father. The truth is that there would be no insult of the kind that would matter to him, but I’m not about to let him know that.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him flatly. “I’ve made my choice. It’s done. Papers have been signed.” That, too, is a kind of lie—I’ll be bringing Evelyn a contract to sign tomorrow night, but not the kind of betrothal contract my father imagines. His face is taut with rage, but it’s an impotent one, and it makes me wonder why I didn’t stand up to him like this a long time ago. I might have avoided the whole messy business with Nicci altogether.
I know it’s not wise to make my father angry, especially not these days, when his temper is so razor-thin. He knows what others say about him now, that he’s a wolf who has lost his teeth, a once-feared leader clinging to power past his prime, who should have passed all this on to me years ago. It makes him cling to it more tightly, and I know he might try to find some way to retaliate against me. How, I’m not sure—but I can imagine he would think of something.
I could avoid all of this by simply marrying Nicci as I promised, salving my guilt by paying for Evelyn’s damages anyway, and leaving all thoughts of her behind. But now that I have an opportunity to have her—even if it might never be in the exact way I want—I can’t squander it. There’s always a chance that she’ll give in to me. That she won’t be able to resist the pull between us, either. And with her so close, I can’t just let her walk away.
She wants it to be nothing more than a marriage of convenience, with no trappings of a real marriage, not even while it lasts. And while I’d never force her—I can’t help but think it’s possible that I could win her over. That she might want me too, and simply not want to admit it.
I haven’t forgotten the way she tensed when I touched her back as we danced, or the way she flinched last night when I wiped soot from her cheek, her skin heating under my touch. The desire is there—she’s just afraid of it. And I can so easily show her that there’s nothing that she needs to be afraid of.
I stand up, ignoring the dark look on his face. “I’m going to break the news to Nicci today. I’ve already started making arrangements. We’ll be married in two weeks.”
“Two weeks—” My father narrows his eyes. “Did you get her pregnant?”
I’m tempted to say yes. It would be an easy excuse for all of this, and if need be, an easy lie about why no baby will actually come of it. But I simply shake my head. “It’s what we both want,” I say firmly. “And the sooner all of this is official, the better.”
“So I can’t get in your way. I see what you’re doing, Dimitri. And you’ll regret these choices, when you’ve had time to think it over.”
“No. I don’t think I will.”
I don’t give him time to say anything else. I stride out of his office, checking the time as I call my bank to request a second card that I can authorize for Evelyn’s use. I want her to be able to plan the wedding as she likes, including arranging for a dress, and I don’t want her to run into any financial issues along the way.
I intend to spoil her as thoroughly as I possibly can, to make certain she has no reason to regret this choice. And, in time, I think she’ll realize that there’s no reason not to make as much of this temporary marriage as we can.
No reason not to enjoy each other, when the possibility for so much pleasure is right there.
I have thirty minutes before Nicci is supposed to arrive. I finish the call with the bank, and go to find Vik, who is in the kitchen flirting with my father’s cook—a woman in her early forties who has, apparently, just handed him a freshly baked cinnamon roll.
“Vik.” I call out his name, a bit more sharply than I intend, and he pivots sharply on one heel, a look of embarrassment reddening his pale face. “I need you with me. Ms. Armand will be here shortly, and I want to make certain that when our conversation is finished, she leaves the premises.”
“Ms. Armand.” Vik’s mouth twitches as he regretfully sets the cinnamon roll back down, and I know he didn’t fail to notice that I didn’t refer to her by her first name out loud. But I want this business finished, and I want all intimacy between us severed. It’s best if my head of security is well aware of that.
“Yes. When she arrives, bring her out to the greenhouse to talk to me. It should be a brief conversation.” I want the meeting to happen well away from the house, where my father can’t overhear or interfere. And the greenhouse is relatively private.
Twenty minutes later, as I look at a row of cream-colored roses that the staff have been cultivating, I hear the sound of footsteps coming towards me. I look up, and see Nicci stalking in my direction, her eyes narrowed. She’s wearing a slim red sheath dress and heels that sink in the dirt as she walks, her hair neatly slicked back in a smooth ponytail, and she has that expression on her face that I’ve come to know so well.
“You’ve been ignoring me,” she says sharply, coming to an abrupt stop an arm’s-length away. “You didn’t even bother to let me know that you got back from your ‘business’ that you left the party so quickly for. Which makes me think, once again, that it was actually another woman.”
I feel that flicker of guilt, but I quickly squash it.
“I needed some time to think.”
“Think?” She splutters briefly, before regaining her composure. She crosses her arms over her chest—something Evelyn has done while talking to me, too. But there’s something different about it. Evelyn isn’t afraid to fire back at me, and it intrigues me. But with Nicci, I always feel as if nothing I do is ever going to be quite good enough. That whatever I say, it will be the wrong thing.
She’s never going to be happy with me. And although I don’t particularly like her company, I have no desire to make either of us unhappy.
“I know you’re expecting me to make the arrangement between us official by the new year. And while I’ve been thinking about how to go about doing exactly that, the truth is, Nicci—I can’t.”
I see her flinch, a momentary flash of hurt in her eyes before her gaze hardens again. “Can’t what ?” she asks tautly, and I know she understands what I’m saying. She just wants to make me spell it out.
I owe her that much, at least.
“I can’t marry you,” I say simply, and that flash of hurt in her eyes turns instantly to anger.
“So you’re breaking our engagement. My father will have something to say?—”
“There was no engagement,” I tell her firmly. “I didn’t propose, and no betrothal was finalized. There were no papers signed, no plans made. Your father and mine had a gentleman’s agreement, but I opposed it from the start. And though I’ve thought long and hard about how to make this match work between us, the truth is that we’re not well-suited to each other, Nicci. I can’t make you happy?—”
“Don’t tell me what makes me happy,” she flares, taking a sharp step backwards. Her mouth is pinched at the corners, and I can see her trembling faintly, fury running through her like an electric current. “You have no idea what makes me happy.”
“Which is just more evidence that we shouldn’t be married.”
She laughs, a sharp, high bark of a sound. “What does marriage have to do with happiness? This marriage was a business deal.”
“One that doesn’t suit me. Look at it however you want, Nicci,” I tell her, as calmly as I’m able. “I’m refusing to go forward with this. I’m sorry, but there’s no insult to you. No broken engagement for you to explain. There was nothing official between us.” I make sure to emphasize it, because it matters. In the circles we both move in, it could be damaging if Nicci tries to spread the rumor that I’ve broken a promise to her. That I humiliated her by breaking an official engagement. But there was no such thing.
What my father agreed to, and what I’ve agreed to are two different matters. And I’m finally putting my foot down on that.
Nicci swallows hard, her nostrils flaring as she steps back again. “My father is going to be furious. We’ll see if he keeps doing business with your family after this. The money he brings to your table?—”
“There’s always more money. It’s the least of my concerns.”
She shakes her head sharply, and I can tell she’s furious. But rather than saying another word, she pivots on her heel, and stalks away. Outside, I see Vik step forward, murmuring something quietly to her. I see her stiffen, and stalk down the path, Vik shadowing her to make sure she leaves without doing anything rash. Like, for instance, going to talk to my father.
I watch her go, feeling a weight lift off of my shoulders as she gets further and further away. The entire situation has been unpleasant to deal with, but it’s over now.
Nicci will find someone better suited to her. Someone who wants her—or who cares about the money she brings to the table more than I do. I meant it when I said to her that money is easy for me to come by.
What I’ve never come across before is a woman who captivates me the way Evelyn does. And she needs something from me.
It’s time to figure out how to make certain that she gets exactly that.